


A Post-Grave Confession from a Brainwashed Assassin

by ptw30



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bromance, Bucky's POV, Extended Scenes from the Movies, Gen, Longing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:43:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6774994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ptw30/pseuds/ptw30
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It probably should have surprised Bucky that Steve now stood in his “kitchen,” but it didn’t. (Takes place during different scenes of Captain America: Civil War; spoilers throughout)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Post-Grave Confession from a Brainwashed Assassin

**Author's Note:**

> There are so many scenes and feelings implied in CACW. I wanted to explore those implications. Hope you enjoy!

It didn’t matter that Steve was now six-foot-two, muscular, and the leader of a superhero team that had saved the world countless times. It didn’t matter that more than seventy years had passed, and Steve and he spent them apart, Bucky as an assassin and Hydra Agent, Steve as a superhero and Avenger. It didn’t matter that Bucky had been hiding in Bucharest for the last two years, in a tiny shithole of an apartment that perhaps served as its own cell. 

When he saw Captain America standing before his frig, flipping through his notebook, Bucky was sixteen and in Brooklyn again, with the couch cushions on the floor, holding a cold steak for Steve’s shiner. 

It probably should have surprised him that Steve now stood in his “kitchen,” but it didn’t. As soon as he saw the newspaper, he knew elite strike teams would be after him as well as any leftover Hydra agents and of course, Captain America. 

Bucky guessed he should be grateful there wasn’t an Avenger or five with him, but his instincts told him to flee before Steve saw him and made him relive every second of his horrible past. He would want to know how Bucky survived and why he stayed away for so long, and then Bucky would have to face all the horrors of the last seventy years, including that night in December 1991 where Bucky killed a once trusted ally, the father of a certain red-and-gold-armored friend of Steve. 

Bucky just couldn’t deal with that. 

But he couldn’t force himself to move, and when Steve turned, those blue eyes widening with disbelief—and relief—Bucky was trapped in a horror much worse than the Soviet bunker. Even though Steve looked at him like he always had, with a mixture of awe and concern, just like Bucky always used to look at him in the back alleys of Brooklyn—Bucky wasn’t sixteen anymore, and it physically hurt to think Steve still thought of him that way, even knowing the truth of his Hydra history. 

But he didn’t know everything, and Bucky wouldn’t burden Steve with all this, especially after he’d made a life for himself. A new family. It was best for Steve to leave the past—Bucky himself—behind, even though Bucky couldn’t shake the thought that Steve might have been avenging _him_ all these years. 

Bucky wasn’t sure what to say or even how to breathe until Steve spoke, “Do you know me?”

 _I know you better than you know yourself._ “You’re Steve. I read about you in a museum.” 

An urgent voice sounded from Steve’s earpiece, but Bucky couldn’t quite hear the words over the beating of his own heart. 

Steve’s face grew stern, determined. “I know you’re nervous and you have every right to be, but you’re lying.”

Of course Steve would know. He always knew. “I wasn’t in Vienna. I don’t do that anymore.” If nothing else, he needed Steve to understand that. He wasn’t the killer he was once forced to be. 

“Well, the people who think you did are coming right now, and they’re not planning on taking you alive.” 

Bucky nodded and moved toward the door, his body tensing with anticipation of the battle that was to come. “That’s smart. Good strategy.” 

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.” 

Bucky wished he could believe that. “It always ends in a fight.” 

The voice in Steve’s earpiece rang louder with a desperate warning, while Steve’s voice tightened. “You pulled me from the river. Why?”

He wanted so badly for Bucky to remember, to be what they were as kids, but they weren’t kids anymore. And Bucky wasn’t the same person he was back in Brooklyn.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” 

“ _Breach! Breach! Breach!_ ”

The elite forces threw a grenade in the window then, and Steve directed it into the kitchen wall. Bucky worked on instinct, blocking another attack with his mattress before falling into old habits all-too-easily. He kicked a grenade to Steve, who smothered the explosion with his shield. 

Seventy years, and it was as if no time had passed. 

Except seventy years had passed, and Bucky forced himself to remember that. He was just dragging Steve down and making him into a criminal—he’d read about the Sokovia Accords—but Steve just wouldn’t let him. As he tried to take out a group, Steve had his back, protecting him with his shield, and then Bucky saved him, too, knocking him to the ground as bullets flew overhead. 

Steve looked at him with such earnest, wanting to help and not being able to, that Bucky couldn’t take it anymore. He fled. Of course, the idiot followed, and Bucky did the only thing he could think to lose Steve—throw one of the soldiers over the railing. Steve, of course, lunged for the soldier, even throwing Bucky an incredulous glare. 

“Come on, man.”

Things escalated quickly, too quickly for Bucky, and then he was fighting a black cat—what the hell?—on an adjacent roof. A helicopter shot at the cat, saving Bucky at the last possible moment, and then he was jumping from the building and a bridge, into the tunnels of Bucharest, trying to escape both the cat and Steve, who gave chase. 

The only way to save both himself and Steve now was to get away, so Steve wouldn’t be forced to hand him over to the authorities. And he would never be given a proper trial. The former assassin for Hydra? He’d be lucky to ever see the outside world again, let alone actually obtaining freedom, and perhaps he didn’t deserve it. But he wouldn’t dwell on that today. Instead, he’d steal that bike and escape. 

Only the cat caught up with him thanks to the Falcon, Sam Wilson, and then Steve was there, tackling the cat, always having Bucky’s back. Didn’t he know a lost cause when he saw it?

The strike force finally surrounded them, and Steve immediately thought of Bucky, reaching a hand out to steady him, to keep him from doing something stupid. But then Bucky’s greatest fear happened when War Machine—that’s a hero’s name?—dropped between them and muttered, “Congratulations, Cap. You’re a criminal.”

The elite forces grabbed Bucky then, forcing him down to the ground, sparing him from seeing the absolute disappointment in Steve’s eyes as they cuffed him. Not like that would actually stop him, but he wouldn’t fight now, not with Steve compromised. The elite forces set him off to the side, pushing him down to the curb, always with at least five guns trained upon him as they waited for secure transport. Bucky kept his eyes averted, chin never lowered but face as blank and stern as ever. He wouldn’t show Steve just how much this whole ordeal affected him, instead choosing to play the cool, indifferent killer he was supposed to be. 

Movement, and a tired sigh, and Bucky refused to look to his right to see the person he always knew to be at his side. A hand fell to his shoulder and tightened. Steve never could take a hint, and Bucky wouldn’t ever admit to himself how much he craved that kind touch, even though he initially flinched. When was the last time someone actually held him rather than punched him? He wouldn’t allow himself to remember the Black Widow he’d loved and lost. The pain would just be too great. 

He wanted to ask Steve why he was there, how he had gotten to sit beside him, but that would only confirm what Steve only suspected.

“Everyone’s on edge,” Steve explained, more than a hint of remorse in his voice. “I said I’d guarantee you wouldn’t cause any more traffic issues, and they were grateful.”

 _Go away,_ he wanted to plead. _This will only make it worse when they lock me up and destroy the key._

“I will do everything in my power to make sure you’re given a fair trial. It wasn’t you.”

“You don’t know me,” Bucky muttered. _Not anymore. I’m not even sure I know myself._

The hand on his shoulder tightened as if to reaffirm the truth Steve spoke, “I do, Buck,” he said, but Bucky heard, _I’m the only one who does._

Just behind the line of guards, the elite forces’ leader began rummaging through Bucky’s bag, and he wanted to stop the man. There were only a few hundred dollars he’d managed to save, a black-market passport he’d procured, a knife—and a letter he’d written, in case someone shot him down one day. If it were a government agency like these forces, he always assumed they would give the letter to Steve. He never expected to be taken alive with Steve next to him. 

But then again, maybe he should have. 

The elite forces’ leader came to Steve and asked to speak with him alone. Bucky glanced up at him as Steve stood and slapped both his shoulders in comforting embrace before following the leader away. They spoke briefly, and the leader handed the letter to Steve—apparently, being an Avenger still had some perks—and Steve read the letter quietly and calmly. 

It was succinct and true, a post-grave confession from a brainwashed assassin who held no misconceptions about his tortured life. He was sorry he’d put Steve through so much and was glad that he’d made a new life for himself with a new family who obviously cared very deeply for him. Bucky hoped his own death wouldn’t change Steve’s faith in humanity and those he wanted to protect, and however the end came, it would be just, a fitting end for a rather irredeemable soul. 

Steve folded the letter and tucked it away in its envelope before handing the contents back to the leader and returning to the side of the road. Bucky looked away once Steve was close enough to actually see his expression, and when Steve sat again, his hand never left Bucky’s shoulder. 

He said nothing, however, and this time, the stifling silence broke Bucky. “You should leave.”

“Not a chance, Buck.”

Not James. Not Sgt. Barnes. Not the Winter Soldier. Not even Bucky. Buck, as Steve always called him. 

Bucky met Steve’s tense expression, a tiny smile teasing the edge of his lips. “I had him on the ropes.”

Steve would smile, but it would be disrespectful to T’Challa. “I know you did.”

*^*^*

Steve turned back just as the doors to the CIA facility began to close, and it was that look of concern and helplessness that made Bucky stay still in his chair, though he could have escaped at any moment. 

So he thought he’d let Steve know he was all right—or at least, not completely unhinged. 

“My name is Bucky.”

Finally saying the words after denying his own existence for so long gave him some relief, and he couldn’t help but think somewhere, it gave Steve some, too. 

*^*^*

The façade, whatever was left of it, shattered when he found his arm caught in a vice, and Steve and his friend, Sam, came back, demanding answers. Yeah, he’d be pissed, too, if Steve had gone on a rampage like that, hurting half of friends without just cause. But Bucky was more pissed at himself than anything, and he believed Steve was, too, for letting Zemo use him. 

But Bucky—finally—couldn’t stop a tiny, indulgent smile from brightening his features as he answered, “Your mother’s name is Sarah. You used to fill the inside of your shoes with newspaper.” 

Probably no one in the world could imagine Captain America doing such a thing, and Bucky liked being able to laugh with Steve about their past. 

Steve’s shoulders immediately melted of tension. “That’s not something you could have learned in a museum.” 

“Are we just supposed to take that and be okay with it?”

No, Bucky would be suspicious if the roles were reversed—why couldn’t the roles be reversed and the Falcon the one caught in the trap?—but Steve came over within a few moments to release him. He demanded to know about his missions and what information he’d divulged to Zemo.

He couldn’t tell him that. Bucky would never make Steve carry that burden. 

But then Steve sat down next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and Bucky felt his own tension slowly melt. Steve always had that effect upon him. Even during the war, just Steve being there reminded Bucky of their days playing on the streets of Brooklyn or at Coney Island. Home never seemed far away, not with Steve by his side, or perhaps home was at Steve’s side. 

Bucky couldn’t fit into Steve’s present life, not with his bloodied past of misery and death. They had parted all those years ago, and though Steve tried, not everyone could be saved. Bucky could not be redeemed, and even though Steve was right next to him, he was alone. 

“I will always be grateful for you, Buck. Even when I had nothing, I still had you,” Steve said so plaintively that Bucky couldn’t help but take notice. “And now, when you have nothing, you have me. To the end of the line.”

Steve never could admit defeat, the idiot, and he would save Bucky no matter the personal cost. 

Though it pained Bucky, he told Steve everything, and through it all, Steve sat next to him with red-rimmed eyes and a somber expression. But Bucky was not alone, and with Steve by his side, he never would be again. 

*^*^*

As the glass casing came up, Bucky smiled at Steve, and it was the first true grin he’d given his friend in seventy years. “On your left.”

After a moment of confusion, Steve laughed, hearty and true. The brief interactions with Steve’s friend allowed Bucky to see the mutual respect and camaraderie, and they bonded over one thing, lying on the ground of the airport terminal—Steve’s expense. 

The good-natured sound, and the firm bond Steve had with the Falcon, allowed Bucky to fall into a peaceful slumber. 

_The End_


End file.
